Cowboys Don't Quit

by Anne McAllister

  He urged his horse on, trotting now, keeping far enough ahead of her all the way down the road so that she would have had to shout for him to hear. Finally They reached the next gate. "Just follow the trail on down. Another half mile and you'll see the ranch house. You're almost there." He turned his horse.

  "Luke, listen—"

  "No. Goodbye, Jill." His voice was hard and flat. He didn't look back.

  Two

  Hell, Luke thought as he flung himself onto his narrow cot. Who needed dreams to wake him quivering and shaking? Who needed dreams to make him ache?

  Not him. Hell, no.

  Tonight he had reality to do the trick.

  All the damned work he'd done all day, all the wood he'd chopped when he'd got back up the mountain, all the shirts he scrubbed threadbare on the old washboad well into the night hadn't banished reality one bit.

  He only had to turn his head to see out the window to the tree where she'd tied her horse. Even in the shad-owy moonlight, he only had to glance toward the pas-ture. He could see the stump where she'd stood. He only had to shut his eyes and in his mind he could see his cabin. But now when he saw the front steps, she was standing there.

  Jillian.

  Jillian Crane.

  God, he thought as he stared up at the rough-hewn ceiling, why Jill? Of all the women in the world, why her?

  For almost two years he hadn't seen her. He'd figured he wouldn't have to see her ever again. He'd counted it one of his very few blessings.

  And now, out of the blue, she was here. Right here. On his mountain.

  Standing mere inches from him. So close he could have touched her. So close her breath had actually touched him.

  Damn it to hell.

  And she'd come to apologize to him!

  Apologize! When God knew he ought to have been on his knees apologizing to her.

  Instead he'd done his best to insult her, to remind her of the one thing he should have pretended to forget— the day he had kissed her.

  The day he'd discovered that, for all that she was his best friend's fiancee, he didn't have the self-control he ought to have. For a few brief moments he'd taken her for himself!

  He'd had no right.

  She was Keith's from the start. Luke hadn't even been around when Keith met her. He'd broken his leg during a chase scene toward the end of the filming of Tiger's Dreams, a movie they were working on in Spain. And as soon as he was able, Luke had flown back to California to recuperate.

  Keith had gone on to London with the rest of the crew to finish up some interiors in the studio there. Near the end of filming, two days before he was due to come home, an American magazine writer named Jillian Crane had gone to London to interview him for an in-depth profile.

  Luke never knew exactly what had happened at that interview. It was enough that Keith hadn't come back to California with the rest of the crew. Instead he'd flown to the Caribbean for "a little R and R" and a lot more in-depth discussion with Jillian-Crane.

  When he finally did come back to Los Angeles three weeks later, the article was finished; Jill wasn't.

  She and Keith were a pair.

  The first time Luke saw her was the day she and Keith had got back to L.A. He'd been staying at Keith's house because his own apartment had too many steps for a man just getting used to his walking cast.

  He'd been limping around the kidney-shaped pool, when suddenly Keith had appeared in the doorway.

  "Hey, Luke! You can walk again! So, c'mere. Want you to meet my lady."

  "Your...lady?" He had never heard Keith call any woman that before. He glanced up, curious, to see a serious, dark-haired beauty looking at him. His heart skipped a beat. He took a step, slipped in a puddle and landed on his rear end.

  They both rushed to his aid. Keith was laughing and grumbling. "Knocked you right on your can, did she? I'm not surprised."

  "Are you all right?" the woman asked. She was leaning over him, patting him, her dark hair tickling against his bare chest.

  "I'm fine," Luke snapped, brushing them both off, mortified by his clumsiness, which was a direct result of his instant reaction to Keith's "lady."

  He still was mortified every time he remembered what had happened that day. But in retrospect, he supposed his falling was the best thing that could have happened. It had prompted him to shove Jill away then. And that had set the tone of his relationship with her ever since.

  She was Keith's lady, so Luke steered as clear of her as he could. It wasn't easy. Keith didn't drop his friends when he found a woman. Instead, he tried to get everyone together. For Luke it didn't work. He told himself that she had no affect on him or on his life at all. It wasn't true, of course. He couldn't look at her without feeling a renewed surge of attraction. And it didn't take long to figure out that the attraction was more than physical. He liked Jill Crane.

  He liked the way she listened when people talked, liked her no-nonsense approach to Keith's very crazy, fast-lane life. He told himself she was stodgy, that after Jill's advent into his life, Keith changed. He became quieter, more introspective.

  "Sane," Carl had said, laughing.

  Probably. There had never been anything very sane about the things Luke and Keith did together. They went skydiving, shark hunting, motorcycle racing, and did a dozen other things, each more crazy and daring than the last. They were stubborn, competitive and tough as nails.

  "Tryers," Keith called them. "Two of a kind."

  But Jill brought out a side of Keith Luke really didn't know.

  "A kinder, gentler Keith," Luke remembered scoffing when Keith had declined to go out bar hopping with him and another friend one night. "Man, has she got you tied down."

  But Keith had just grinned and tugged Jill into his lap, shrugging equably. "Eat your heart out, chum," was all he'd said.

  He never knew that there were times when Luke had. Luke had put up a good front. He'd told himself, Keith—hell, the whole world—that he didn't need sweetness and light and a gentle woman like Jill. As for the gentler side of himself, he wasn't sure he had one.

  It was a damn sight easier to tell himself that if he wanted to steer clear of her.

  And he did. He had...until that last afternoon at Big Bear.

  They'd spent the weekend together, just he and Jill. It had been all Keith's fault, but he wanted a little time "out of the fishbowl," as he called it. It had worked once before when Luke had decoyed the press away, pretending to be Keith. He'd hated doing it, but he could understand why Keith asked him to. Fame wasn't always easy, and Keith went out of his way for his fans almost every day. He needed a little break.

  So when Keith asked, Luke had gone. He'd argued that he could decoy them alone, but Keith had disagreed.

  "You have to take Jill. If she isn't there, they won't believe you're me."

  And so the two of them went together. Jill did her best to be pleasant and cheerful and polite. Luke did his best to be surly and uncommunicative. He didn't really want to be, but it seemed the smartest—and safest—way to spend a weekend with her.

  But spending forty-eight hours in her company was an exercise in frustration beyond belief. Not only because he found her physically attractive, but because she was a nice person, a caring person. If he let her, she'd bring out the same good qualities in him that she brought out in Keith. Luke didn't dare. Because if he did, she'd bring out something else, too.

  Finally, late Sunday afternoon, as they were lying beside the pool, he decided he just might make it through. There were only a few more hours to endure, when Jill glanced up from her book and said, "Don't look now, but there's a photographer trying to get a shot over the fence. Probably looking for a real hot picture." She grinned conspiratorially at Luke, then blew him a kiss.

  A weekend's worth of frustration boiled over.

  "Then let's give him something to really look at," he growled. And before he had time for second thoughts, he swung himself over by her chaise longue and kissed her hard on the mouth.


  He'd meant it as a gesture. Nothing more, nothing less.

  The photographer wanted to see some hot stuff? Well, line, Luke would show him!

  But he was the one who'd been shown.

  He and, he supposed, Jill.

  He touched his lips to hers, and what began as a kiss ended as a conflagration. Searing in intensity, burning in desperation. Mad and crazy and foolhardy, it endured and deepened, and finally shook him to the depths of his soul.

  God knew where it would have ended if Jill hadn't finally pulled back, pressing her hand against her mouth and looking up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  "Keith," she whispered, horrified.

  Luke's jaw locked. An eternity passed. Then he muttered an expletive under his breath and dove into the blessedly cold water of the pool. But he'd never been able to wash away the guilt.

  She was back.

  Luke couldn't believe it.

  He'd spent the entire day doing his best to blot out the memory of Jillian Crane sitting on his doorstep just the night before, and he came over the rise that evening and damned if she wasn't sitting there again.

  His horse, sensing sudden tension in the hand that held the reins, tossed his head and sidestepped.

  "It's all right," Luke said automatically, reaching out to pat the horse's neck.

  But it wasn't. It wasn't all right at all.

  She'd seen him and was getting to her feet. She lifted a hand, but then dropped it and stood waiting, feet slightly apart. She looked like Annie Oakley ready to take on the bad guys at high noon.

  And he was definitely one of the bad guys.

  He should have realized that brushing her off yesterday had been too easy. This was Jill Crane he was dealing with. She might have been Keith's fiancee, but she was still a competent, diligent professional writer, an award-winning personality profiler.

  He knew she didn't leave any stone unturned when it came to getting her story. Jill went after people like one of those old-time sheriffs who always got his man.

  But she damned well wasn't getting him.

  Nothing said he had to talk to her. And nothing on earth would get him to.

  Once—once—he'd succumbed to her in a moment of weakness. It wasn't happening again.

  As far as Jillian Crane and Lucas Tanner were concerned, nothing was happening again.

  It was hard enough to live with the past if he just managed to leave it there. He was damned if he was going to rake it all up again. Least of all with her.

  He scowled fiercely at her as he rode in.

  "Well, here I am again," she said in a singsong, self-mocking tone.

  "Why?"

  "You know why. The book. It's important—to me, to Carl, to Keith's friends and to his fans. And whether cither of us likes it or not, Luke, you're part of it. So—" she shrugged "—I guess I hoped you'd thought about it and changed your mind."

  "All the thinking in the world isn't going to change my mind. I told you. No."

  And he'd keep saying no until kingdom come if that's what it took. He swung down out of the saddle and faced her head-on. "Believe it. There's nothing you can do or say that will make any difference."

  "You owe it to Keith."

  It was like a knife in the heart.

  He'd thought that nothing could touch him, that he was impervious, that he was prepared for any argument, could turn his back on any plea.

  He wasn't prepared for that.

  He swallowed a curse. He turned away, his fury making his fingers fumble as he tried to loosen the cinch. "Damn you. Keith wouldn't have asked that."

  "Probably not. But then, Keith's not here to ask it, is he?"

  God, it wasn't enough that she thrust the knife in. Now she had to twist it.

  He spun around. "Damn it! How low are you gonna go?"

  She winced and paled, but stood her ground, looking at him defiantly. "As low as I have to, I guess."

  All the four-letter words he could think of tumbled around in his head. He yanked the saddle off, opened the gate and slapped the horse's rump so that it trotted into the pasture.

  "Is this your revenge?" he asked finally.

  "Revenge?" She frowned briefly, then shook her head. "Believe it or not, Luke, I'm not trying to hurt you."

  He snorted. No, he didn't believe it. Why should he?

  She had a right to revenge, even if he wouldn't have expected it of her. But then, up until their kiss, he'd never given her much credit for passion, either.

  Obviously Lucas Tanner had a lot to learn about women.

  Would Keith have wanted him to cooperate?

  Probably, he admitted. Keith was a star, eager for rec-ognition. He relished the limelight.

  He'd have preferred to have the limelight and a good long life, of course. But going out in the spectacular way he had would have appealed to his sense of drama. Af-terward, though, he would want a good accounting.

  Jill would give him a good accounting.

  "You got all those other people. You don't need me," Luke argued.

  "You were closer to him than anyone else. You were his best friend."

  "Some friend," Luke muttered. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "What do I have to do?"

  "Talk to me about how you two met. Tell me about your relationship, the good things and the bad, what Keith meant to you."

  "Nothing much, huh?" he said ironically.

  "I know it will be hard. But there were good times, Luke. A lot of them." She looked at him beseechingly. "It's a chance to remember them."

  "That's supposed to make me feel better? How about thinking about all the good times we could have had if I'd done my job?" He spun away from her and started walking toward the cabin, the saddle in his arms.

  She came after him. "I told you, it wasn't your fault. But we can talk about that, too, if you want."

  He spun around and glowered at her. "I damned well do not want!"

  She took a step back, then said quietly, "It might help."

  "Let's get one thing straight right off. If I talk to you for your book, I'm talkin' just for your book. I'm not talkin' to ease my pain."

  "Because you want to wallow in it?"

  "Go to hell!" He started to turn away again.

  "I've been there," she said quietly.

  They stared at each other. All the pain, all the memories, everything he never wanted to think about again hung there between them.

  Luke dragged a palm down his face. "How long will it take?"

  "It depends."

  "On what?"

  "On you. On how much you're willing to tell me and how long it takes you to get to it."

  He started walking again. "I'm not willing to tell you anything and you know it."

  "Then on how well you cooperate unwillingly." She was walking alongside him, and the wind carried the scent of something faintly flowery that he knew would be haunting him tonight.

  He put the saddle in the shed, then headed toward the cabin. But when he got there, he didn't open the door. He stopped on the narrow front porch and folded his arms across his chest. He wasn't inviting her in. She'd invaded his mountain. She wasn't invading his home.

  "So ask," he said.

  She blinked. "Not tonight. I don't want to just get started and have to stop. I'll come back tomorrow."

  "No."

  She looked taken aback.

  "I'm workin' tomorrow," he explained, moderating his tone.

  "I'll come along."

  "No!" She much for moderation.

  "It would be easiest. I—"

  "I said no. You want me to talk, I'll talk. But you aren't going to follow me around."

  "Then I'll be here when you get back tomorrow night."

  "No. I'll come down. I'll meet you at the Klines' after I finish up here."

  "It will be almost dark. You said—"

  "I'll meet you at the Klines'. Tomorrow night. Take it or leave it." Leave it, he prayed. Leave it.

  Jill met his gaze, t
hen nodded. "The Klines'," she agreed.

  He ground his teeth. "Be there by seven."

  "I'm staying there."

  "What?" How the hell had she wangled that? Did she know the house was his, that Jimmy and Annette were just renting it?

  "Paco arranged it."

  "That manipulating little son of a—"

  "You like him."

  "Like I like poison ivy," Luke grumbled.

  Jill shook her head. She was smiling slightly. "He showed me the Porsche you carved for him. And the animals."

  "Hell." The kid had no sense, no sense at all. Luke had figured the boy might show his mother the half dozen wooden toys he'd made him. He didn't expect him to show the whole damn world. He let out an explosive breath. "Is there anything he didn't show you? Or tell you?"

  "1 don't know," Jill said gravely. "I'll ask him."

  Luke muttered under his breath, then jammed his hands into his pockets. "I don't know what time I'll linish. I'll be down when I get done."

  "I'll make us dinner."

  "I'll eat on the way down. Go on now, or it'll be dark." He turned and stalked toward where she'd left the horse. He untied the reins and slapped them into her hand.

  "Is this a hint, Lucas?"

  He scowled. "What do you think?"

  She stood there with the reins in her hand, then she looked at him. He held himself still and met her gaze. But it seemed to take forever until she was finally in the saddle again.

  "I'll see you tomorrow then," she said quietly.

  He wished to God he could say, Not if I see you first.

  #

  Luke reckoned that being stuck in a blizzard might be excuse enough not to have to go down the mountain the following night. Or being eaten by a swarm of deerflies. Or dying in a forest fire. Or getting mauled by a bear.

  Naturally, he wasn't so lucky. He survived the day intact, the weather turned warm, almost balmy, and the sky was a cloudless blue when he got back to the cabin shortly before six.

  He took his own sweet time washing off in the creek, but finally he had no choice. He had to put on a clean shirt, comb his hair, slap his hat on his head, saddle a fresh horse and make his way down to the ranch house.

  He might not know Jillian well, but he knew her well enough to be sure that she'd come after him if he didn't.